Yesterday saw the re-opening of Kinvara Farmers' Market.  In the lead-up to this, no activity on the blog.

The intended list of plants to be sold at the market never materialised.  That was one of the reasons for starting the blog in the first place.  Doh!

It was a good start to the trading season.  Pots of anemone and tulips sold out, Rau Ram was popular, all bunches of fresh mint went and there was reasonable interest in raspberry canes and willow slips.  The horseradish was the surprise hit of the day.

Today is starting off sunny, so I'll go outside and begin watering where necessary in the tunnels.  Later, the plan is to dig over a plot in the back garden for planting peas into.  They're ready to be planted out!

 More later...I'm out the gap!

It was bright, sunny and hot again today.  Accuweather says 20 C.  Watering is so important in this weather - so easy to frazzle the little seedlings.  We try to give a liberal dose of water twice a day.

It was an inauspicious day, plant-wise, today so we did a bit of general maintenance.  I pulled the strimmer out of storage and fired it up.  We've had very bad luck with these machines over the years.  I think we're on our fifth or sixth model at this stage.  This one's a Maruyama and it seems a good one.  Anyway, it started without much difficulty, old fuel mix and all.

I cut the goose lawn.  We don't have any geese now, but the name stuck.  While having a cup of tea on the newly mown goose lawn, we were amazed to see a Peacock butterfly.  In March!  It was a bit tatty and must have hibernated.  Brimstones continue to enjoy the heatwave.

While watering the sweet peas this evening, I counted 70 Rootrainer trays.  If every cell is full and germinates, that makes 2240 plants!

I noticed the Ajuga starting to flower, too.

Ajuga reptans "Caitlin's Giant"

Another corker of a day!  Why can't spring be like this every year?

The raspberry bed has been well dug-over.  Over the last two days, nearly all the raspberry canes have been dug up and stored in bags. The bed has been given a serious going-over with forks and most of the perennial weeds have been removed.  The umbellifers are unbellifably hard to dig up!


We'll sort through the canes, keep enough for a re-planted raspberry bed and take the remaining to market.  Once the bed has been reinstated, we are determined to manage it better.  Having said that, we planted the original bed over ten years ago and it has been very productive.  We like the autumn varieties - we have Autumn Bliss  and Fall Gold - because they fruit at a good time and the canes are self-supportiing.

Our forester friend came and took away his trailer this evening.  I'd made sure it was as full as I could manage.  He's taken away lots of Elder prunings, hedge prunings, old hebe, bits of hazel and ash from the roadside, some of the recent Thuja branches and anything else I could put my hand to.

It was a very sunny day and I worked without a shirt for too long.  I'll suffer tomorrow, no doubt.

The tunnels were well watered twice today. Once first thing and again just before coming indoors for the evening.  The peas and broad beans are almost all up and this year have managed nearly 100% germination.  The tomatoes are up too.  Something is going for our chillies.  Slugs or woodlice, we think. Every morning a few new corpses!

Even the sweet peas have started germinating.  With luck, we'll have a good crop.  There's a lot of work in preparing all the Rootrainers and sowing - must be over 1500 seeds again - so we hope for a good return for the labour.

When the Farmers' Market starts again Friday after next, we'll have quite a lot to bring for sale.  Watch this space for a list.

Clocks changed during the night.

We had a late night out visiting and to add to our delay in getting to bed, the van refused to start.  With a bit of coaxing - a brief tow - it roared into life and we drove home.

Cats woke us up in spite of moving the door mat to stop the old boy from picking it up with his claws and slapping it back down on the step.  This time, no blame attached to the old one, it was the younger upstart yowling that got me out of bed.

Anyway, to get down to  garden matters it looks like it'll be a lovely day.  I would have gone for an early walk if I hadn't felt so tired.

It's a fruit day all day, so the plan is to plant out at least one of the new damson trees we've had sitting in their pots for months.  They're both in blossom, so I have reservations and wonder if they won't be set back.  Before I start digging, I'll refer to the gardening books.

I'd like to make up a planting mix too and need to research that.

Photos to follow.

More sweet peas!

We'll write the final count soon, but there are more to come.  We filled another batch of Rootrainers today.  Tricia sowed most of them, while I was engaged with assisting our friend with the chainsaw, who was lopping ivy-covered trunks off the tree by the gate.  So much wood.  It always appears more whenit comes down to earth compared to when it's up in the air.

Tomorrow, even though it isn't a flower day, Tricia will have to find and assemble another 10 trays or so.  I'll be at the other job.

Log shifting when I get home.

It's the end of the day and I can't keep my peepers open any longer.  While I was teaching today, Tricia spent six hours sowing sweet peas.  That's a lot of sweet peas and there are yet more to sow.  Tomorrow is another flower day, so they'll be in their compost by the end of the day.

In the afternoon, we are to have help felling the ivy-ridden and multi-trunked tree by our front gate.  We don't want any more large bits dropping off.  Sure as fate, next time it'll land on a van...or one of us.  Always damaging.

Old boy excelled this morning. 4.15!

We were promised the use of our friend's enormous trailer today.  He'll take all our prunings, tree branches and scrubby trimmings.  Great! We cleared a huge pile of elder ghat had been lying for over a year.  It had been added to with last year's soft fruit prunings as well.  It was moved to a spot ready to be pitched into the trailer when it came.

After lunch, we assembled 25 or more sets of Rootrainers.  If you don't know these, they're the best thing for sowing peas and beans into.  This afternoon was a flower day and tomorrow, and indeed part of Wednesday, so it's time to sow sweet peas.  We won't do quite as many as last year's 1500, but we'll start with over 800.

These Rootrainer sets were filled with compost and watered ready for sowing tomorrow.  They'll spend the night in the tunnel, so the compost won't be too cold when sowing starts.

The sweet peas seeds themselves are soaking in front of me.  They'll swell overnight and will take less time to germinate.  I'll post a couple of photos later.

Beltony Blue & Kent Blue Peas Germinated

Likewise Luang Prabang Mangetout Peas

The Rootrainers are interesting.  They encourage very good root development through a process called air pruning.  I'll explain this in a later addition.  School tomorrow, so time for bed.

Incidentally, the expected trailer did arrive, but not until 6 or so in the evening.